Man's advances in research and technology over the years have led to some amazing
discoveries on our planet. Ventures into new areas have uncovered many things but
have left us hungry for more. Our exploration of the moon and regular shuttle flights into Earth orbit has led many of us to believe that all we have left to
discover is "out there", beyond the confines of our planet. Yet the oceans continue
to dish up new and vast arenas of exploration, continuing to surprise and intrigue
us with its strange and "alien" landscapes. The discovery in 1977 of hydrothermal
vent communities and giant tube worms emerges as one of the most exciting finds
in recent years. Heretofore completely unknown, these communities represent a
whole new form of life, making their living on the stuff of the Earth rather
than the sun, like most Earth organisms. Over 300 new species have been identified,
all, of whom base their survival, in one way or another, on a wily group of
bacteria known as chemoautotrophs. Here then is the story of these amazing creatures.

The Discovery of Black Smokers

Amazing as it seems, hydrothermal vents were not discovered until 8 years
after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon (July 20, 1969). You will recall that
hydrothermal vents are plumes of hot water that spew from rocks and cracks along
the ocean floor, especially in regions of sea-floor spreading, such as oceanic
ridges and rift valleys. The formation of hydrothermal vents and the communities
of organisms that depend on them are an area of intense and exciting research to
this day.

The existence of plumes of "hot water" along the ocean floor had been noted
in 1972 (and probably earlier). Water sampling studies along the Galapagos Rift
(near the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Peru) indicated some kind of vents.
Subsequent explorations by the deep-sea submersible Alvin revealed not only the
presence of hydrothermal vents, but also a startling array of giant worms,
clams, and mussels. Scientists were baffled: where did all these organisms come
from?

Up until this time, it was thought that organisms living in the deep sea
depended on a constant "rain" of food from above, i.e. from the lighted regions
of the ocean. Everyone knows that all terrestrial life depends on plants,
ultimately, feeding on them directly or feeding on organisms that feed on
plants, etc. This same "web of life" was thought to exist in the sea, whereby
the carcasses or feces of organisms living in the euphotic, or lighted, region
of the seas, descended to the bottom where they became a source of food for
bottom dwellers. Because this food supply was limited, it was thought that the
numbers of organisms living in the deep-sea were limited. Thus, imagine their
surprise when scientists saw vast "cities" of organisms living on the ocean
floor.

Biologists soon realized that vent organisms relied on a special kind of
bacteria, called chemoautotrophs (chemo = source of energy from chemicals; auto
= synthesize their own food; trophs = type of feeding). Chemoautotrophic
bacteria are able to use the energy of chemicals within the vent water to
synthesize the carbon compounds they require to grow and reproduce. In contrast,
photoautotrophs, i.e. photosynthetic organisms such as plants and algae, use the
energy of sunlight (photo = sunlight) to synthesize the carbon compounds they
need to grow and reproduce. We shall examine the relationship between these
bacteria and vent organisms in more detail below.

From 1977 through 1979, Alvin made a series of dives to further investigate
the nature of these hydrothermal vent communities. The vents were shown to be
associated with the formation of new oceanic crust. Water coming from the vents
had a temperature of 17 degrees C compared to 2 degrees C for the surrounding
bottom water. These vents also issued a rich variety of minerals, presumably
from the dissolution of chemicals in rocks deep beneath the vents. As this hot,
mineral-rich water comes into contact with the cold bottom water, these minerals
precipitate and form deposits on the surrounding rocks.

Some of these deposits accumulate as great mounds of material and may attain
great heights. In 1979, during an expedition along the tip of Baja California,
Alvin discovered 65-foot-high chimney-shaped structure spitting hot black
"smoke." Hence was born the name "black smokers" for vents that emitted dark
streams of particles. While their chemistry may vary, black smokers often emit
particles that are rich in sulfides, lead, cobalt, zinc, copper, and silver.
Other types of vents ejecting a different composition of minerals have been
found and named, including "white smokers", who spit out streams of gypsum and
zinc, rather than sulfides. They also contain less amounts of iron and
copper.

One puzzle for scientists to figure out is why the chemistry of hydrothermal
vents changes, not only among locations, but over temporal scales as well.
Measurements of vent water taken from the time of a sea floor eruption indicate
a change in the mineral composition being emitted. Scientists have also found
that individual vents or entire vent fields can change anywhere from days to
thousands of years.

Despite these puzzles, a great deal has been learned about hydrothermal vents
in the past couple decades. Vents have been found at just about every type of
sea floor spreading boundary (slow, intermediate, fast); they have been found at
"hot spots"; and they have been found in back-arc basins. Seemingly everywhere
that some type of mantle-driven activity occurs, scientists have found
hydrothermal vents.

Although less than 1% of the sea floor where hydrothermal vents are suspected
has been investigated, hundreds of hydrothermal vent fields have been identified
around the globe in the past couple decades. Typically, vents within these
regions cluster in groups, much like the geyser basins in Yellowstone. The
largest vent field, called TAG, (Trans Atlantic Geotraverse, whatever that
means) measures as big as a football field. Other vent fields have taken more
personal names. The first fields discovered at the Galapagos site were named
Rose Garden, Garden of Eden, and East of Eden, after the giant red-fleshed tube
worms found there. Along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the American west prevails,
with names like Lucky Strike, Broken Spur, and Snake Pit. Lucky Strike was named
when scientists found a colony of mussels growing on a fresh mound of sulfide.
The French and American scientists who found this field also named a couple of
individual mounds: Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower. Broken Spur refers to the
topography of another field, which consists of a series of "spurs" coming off
the ridge. The Snake Pit was named for the profusion of white, eel-like fish
that live there. One of the black smokers at Snake Pit was named Saracen's Head,
after one scientist's favorite British pub.

Other favorites include Clam Acres, Snow Blower, and Genesis. Snow Blower
appears to maintain perfect conditions for bacterial growth and the white flaky
mats of these bacteria swirl around the vent, much like snow. Genesis was named
for a vent that "died" and came back to life again after a few years.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention another large black smoker, named
Godzilla. Godzilla is 13 stories high (about 150 feet) and 40 feet across. It is
characterized by large protruding sulfide knobs and shelves that make it look
like a giant layered mushroom. Alvin pilots report that hot water often
accumulates under these shelves making them particularly hazardous.

To date, the largest black smoker mound yet discovered is located in 3,650
meters (11,972 feet) of water on the eastern side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a
few thousand miles directly east of Miami Florida. This circular mound, found in
the TAG field, measures more than 160 feet high and 600 feet in diameter.
Scientists are studying this mound to gain an understanding of the interaction
of crustal rocks and seawater, and to learn how sulfide mounds on land were
formed millions of years ago.

Finally, scientists have been able to observe firsthand the formation of
hydrothermal vents as lava erupted on the sea floor. Newly cooled lava on the
sea floor appears glassy, much like the way glass appears when you melt it in a
fire. As Cindy Lee Dover describes it:

The most recent lavas...are glassy, reflective, with a rind of brittle
glass that hasn't been in place long enough to weather or to accumulate a
covering of dusty sediment rained down from the surface. The terrain in the
axial valley can be tortured and rugged, filled with pits and caverns and tall
pillars, with rubble, talus*, scree*. It is a landscape of stark
beauty.

[*Professor's note: A talus is a sloping pile of rock fragments at the foot
of a cliff; a scree is an accumulation of pebbles or rock fragments at the base
of a steep slope.]

Eruptions of lava on the sea floor as it widens appear to form deep cracks
into which seawater rushes. Some of these cracks may extend thousands of feet,
or more than a mile in some cases, into the lower crust. These cracks evolve
into a series of dikes or passageways along which hot, mineral-rich seawater
flows towards the surface. It is likely that some kind of circulation system
develops where seawater enters cracks in the crust at one location, is
transported downwards where it makes contact with hot rocks or even magma, and
boils to the surface. Water in these vents becomes superheated (because of the
intense pressure) often reaching temperatures of 350 degrees C. As it streams to
the surface and mixes with the cold bottom water (at a temperature of 2 degrees
C), the vent water quickly cools and dumps its load of minerals. From the
opening on the sea floor to a few feet away from the vent, a temperature
gradient is formed along which different organisms might live, depending on
their temperature preference. At some vents, the exiting water is cooler, around
17 degrees C, which allows organisms to live comfortably within its
confines.

The importance of hydrothermal vent circulation is being increasingly
realized. Scientists now estimate that the circulation of seawater through the
oceanic crust accounts for 34% of the heat input into the global oceans, about
25% of the globe's total heat input. It is also thought that hydrothermal vents
may regulate the chemistry of the global oceans and could be responsible for the
elemental composition of seawater as a whole. Obviously, the formation of sea
floor mineral deposits and the interaction of seawater with crustal rocks has a
big influence on the composition of the crust and may be the "icing on the cake"
as they say that determines the geological properties of the sea floor.

Of course, the formation and evolution of a hydrothermal vent system is
complicated by the fact that nothing is ever "permanent" on the sea floor. Magma
is always rising to fill old dikes, and the sea floor is always spreading to
form new ones. Such dynamics have sparked the interests of a whole generation of
scientists and many prominent programs, such as NOAA's VENTS program, NSF's
RIDGE program, and the French-Japanese STARMER program are underway to
understand the geological, chemical, and biological processes that occur at
hydrothermal vents.

The Base of the Food Web: Sulfur-Oxidizing Bacteria

Compared to the surrounding sea floor, upon which organic matter rains from
above, hydrothermal vents boast a community of organisms that is 10,000 to
100,000 times denser. The reason for this: the presence of sulfur-oxidizing
bacteria as a food source either directly or through a kind of cooperative
"agreement" between the bacteria and a particular vent organism.

Sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and other forms of bacteria that gain energy from
the metabolism of inorganic compounds belong to a category of organisms called
chemoautotrophs, as mentioned above. These bacteria are able to oxidize (remove
electrons) compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and store energy in the form of
ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which is the universal "energy" molecule in all
organisms, including humans. These bacteria use this energy to transform carbon
dioxide into simple sugars and other molecules, just like plants. Thus, these
unique bacteria function much in the same way as plants, creating organic matter
at the base of the food web for other organisms to use.

While some vent organisms may consume the bacteria directly, a more ingenious
method has evolved for many of the vent organisms. A kind of symbiosis, or
"living together" has developed, where vent organisms provide a secure "house"
for the bacteria, who in turn, provide carbon compounds to the host animal.
Symbiosis occurs throughout the animal and plat kingdoms. It is formally defined
as a close association between two organisms that benefits one or both partners
and may be obligatory (absolutely essential to the survival of one or both
partners) or it may be facultative (beneficial, but not required.

These symbioses are critical for hydrothermal vent organisms, allowing them
to survive in numbers that far surpass what would otherwise be possible on the
sea floor. While symbiotic relationships in coral reefs have been known for some
time, the discovery of hydrothermal vents in 1977 has spurred an interest in
symbiotic relationships, and led to their recognition in many other types of
habitats, such as mangrove swamps, mud flats, and sewage outlets. Shades of Gaia
begin to creep in here.

Nowhere is the importance of symbiosis better demonstrated than in the giant
tube worm, who has the scientific name Riftia pachyptila. When these
worms were collected and examined in greater detail, a most stunning feature was
found. These worms have no mouth, no gut, and no anus. They are completely
devoid of any digestive system whatsoever. Now how do you get to be four-feet
tall without eating?

This mystery of the deep was solved by a graduate student at Harvard
University, Colleen Cavanaugh, who relates the story of jumping up in class and
shouting that she figured out how the tubeworms make their living. Inside the
body of the tubeworm is an organ called a trophosome. The trophosome is highly
vascularized and contains specialized cells packed full of chemoautotrophic
sulfur bacteria. By means that are not entirely understood, the tubeworm
provides all the chemicals necessary for the bacteria to make food, including
sulfur, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, and the bacteria manufacture sugars or some
other form of energy-rich molecules that provide nutrition to the tubeworm. Most
certainly, the blood-red hemoglobin that fill the tubeworm's cardiovascular
system and is so highly visible as the red gill-like polyps that extend from its
tube is important in the transport of sulfur and oxygen. How this is
accomplished and how nutrition is provided to the tubeworm from the bacteria is
less well understood.

Other vent organisms, such as the "giant" white clams (as big as dinner
plates) and mussels, use similar symbiotic mechanisms to obtain their nutrition.
Other organisms, such as the blind Atlantic vent shrimp, Rimacaris (Rima meaning
rift and caris meaning shrimp) feed on the sulfur bacteria directly. Similarly,
other worms and polychaetes have been observed with bacteria in their gut,
suggesting they feed directly on the mats of sulfur bacteria. Larger organisms,
such as some types of crabs and fishes, are most likely opportunistic feeders
living on other living or dead vent organisms. Thus, a food web is established,
consisting of primary producers (chemoautotrophic sulfur bacteria), the
secondary producers (tubeworms, mussels, clams, shrimp), and predators (fishes)
or detritivores (crabs).

Because of the difficulty of observing these organisms or even raising them
in the lab, progress in understanding how they feed, how they metabolize their
food, and what role they play in the food web has been slow. Nonetheless, the
existence of vent organisms and their unique way of solving life's problem of
growing, surviving, and reproducing has opened up a whole new way of looking at
life. The primary dependence of these organisms on symbiotic relationships has
led many scientists to re-evaluate the importance of these associations in many
other communities of organisms. Thus, the discovery of vent organisms has
changed our perspective of marine ecology in all areas of the sea.

I have to quote Cindy Lee Van Dover one more time because she does such a
good job at capturing the importance and enthusiasm these new life forms bring
to oceanography. She writes:

The stunning implication is that submarine hydrothermal systems, fueled by
the heat of volcanic processes, can support life in the absence of sunlight.
Vent water may be the ultimate soup in the sorcerer's kettle. The water has a
primeval chemistry that has prevailed along submarine mountain ranges since
the breakup of Gondwanaland. There is growing interest in and legitimization
of theories that the chemical and thermal conditions found in some vent waters
may permit the synthesis of organic compounds. Deep-sea vents may have been
the site where life originated on this planet.

The Life and Death of Vent Organisms

Life on a hydrothermal vent can be a tricky matter. Surrounded in complete
darkness, miles beneath the sea, under intense pressure, and barely keeping your
body temperature above freezing, is just the start of it. Not only is the sea
floor moving beneath you continuously, but the very rocks on which you build
your house may be subject to volcanic eruption at any moment. A 1991 Alvin
expedition to the East Pacific Rise witnessed the creation of a new hydrothermal
vent. So hot was the vent water -- 403 degrees C -- that many of the previous
inhabitants, like the giant tube worms, had been baked to death. This event
earned the name of Tube worm Barbecue for the site. Such is the life of an
organism living on a hydrothermal vent.

The eruption of lava onto the sea floor and the creation of a new black
smoker represents the start of a new phase in the life cycle of vent
communities. From the opportunistic early colonists to the mature "climax"
species, the organisms that make up the vent community change as the vent
environment changes, not only in the geological and chemical sense, but also in
the biological sense. This process whereby distinct sets of species are
associated with different phases in the colonization of a vent community is
known as succession. Strictly defined, succession is the change in species
composition and community structure with time. Perhaps nowhere is succession
more evident to us than near volcanoes such as Mt. St. Helens in Washington or
Mauna Loa in Hawaii. A visitor here can see the dramatic changes in plant and
animal life that occur from the time of the eruption to a few years afterwards.
This same process takes place on the ocean floor.

The first "colonists" of a new hydrothermal vent are the sulfur bacteria.
This should be obvious since all vent organisms ultimately depend on these
bacteria, as explained above. Scientists who have witnessed such events describe
the "massive blinding snowstorm of bacteria" and the absence of any other living
organisms. But this scenario soon changes.

The colonization of a new hydrothermal vent happens quickly as mobile
organisms, such as crabs, move into the site. Reports of hundreds of juvenile
crabs scattered over a new vent site are not uncommon. These particular crabs
feed on the mats of sulfur bacteria using their feathery appendages to "sweep"
bacteria into their mouths.

Another early colonizer is the Jericho worm. Jericho worms are also tube
worms, but much smaller and with circular concentric tubes. Colonies of Jericho
worms were observed within a year after the "blinding snowstorm", which had been
reduced to mats of bacteria on the sea floor. How these worms colonize so
rapidly is not known, but its likely that the adults have some mechanism for
making sure that larvae are ready at a moment's notice. There has been one
report of Jericho worm larvae finding a new vent, but whether the larvae drift
for some time until they find a vent, or whether the adults have some means of
"sensing" the birth of a vent, whereupon they release larvae, is purely
speculative.

Although not mentioned anywhere that I know, amphipods (you would recognize
them as beach hoppers) are another animal that likely colonize new vents within
the first year. Amphipods are ubiquitous throughout the ocean world, and early
photos of the deep-sea floor show them crawling like flies over the carcasses of
fish left there by scientists. Swarms of amphipods, which are prodigious
swimmers, have been observed "hovering", like insects, within the flow of vent
water. Likely, they feed on the bacteria which spew from the vent.

After some time, probably within a couple years or so, the new vent is
colonized by more familiar inhabitants, such as the giant tube worms. Tube worms
release eggs and sperm, typical of most marine invertebrates, which form a
planktonic larvae. The larvae drift until they find a suitable habitat, most
likely indicated by some chemical cue which causes them to settle and start
building their tubes. The life span of the larvae, its feeding mechanism (if
any), and how it obtains its "starter" set of bacteria are not known. However,
on this latter point, researchers working with bioluminescent squids and fishes
have found special organs and special chemicals that attract and promote the
growth of bioluminescent bacteria. It is possible that a similar process occurs
for the tube worm bacteria.

The colonization of tube worms also brings a group of organisms that live in
and around the tubes. One such group, the siphonostomes, are tiny flea-like
copepods who live directly on the tubes of the giant worms. It appears that
these copepods feed directly on the flesh of the tubeworm. Limpets, small
molluscs whose shells look like tiny, flattened hardhats, also live on and
around the tubeworms. Limpets in the rocky intertidal typically feed on
bacteria, scraping them off rocks with their "toothpick-like" radulas. Most
likely, they feed in a similar manner on the vents. In turn, these limpets are a
favorite food source for squat lobsters, who have been known to eat forty or
more limpets in one sitting.

A number of other tubeworms and "feather-dusters" also inhabit the vents. One
such worm, called Alvinella, lives in the hottest environment of any known
animal. These animals prefer to build their tubes where the water is 30 - 40
degrees C (that's over 100 degrees F) These worms, which are fat and red and
about 6 inches long, have a "starburst" plume used to gather food. They also
have a white "fur" of bacteria that covers their bodies, possibly in a symbiotic
relationship that de-toxifies the water for the worm, which contains heavy
amounts of hydrogen sulfide, which can be toxic above a certain
concentration.

Clams and mussels also make their way into the vent community, and may
represent the "climax" community in the succession of organisms that inhabit the
vents. Mussels appear to have supplanted the tube worms at Rose Garden. Three
years after its discovery, scientists returned to find mounds of mussels
covering the vents, and very few tubeworms, for which Rose Garden was named.
Mussels on rocky shores are quite dominant and represent the "climax" stage for
these communities. Their strong byssal threads -- the chitinous threads that
attach them to rocks both on coastlines and in the deep sea -- enable them to
withstand considerable forces, and it takes a lot to shake them loose. These
threads also form a home for a number of smaller invertebrates, both on the
shore and in the deep sea. Like the giant tubeworm, the mussels have symbiotic
bacteria, but these bacteria are contained in the mussel's gills. The vent
mussels also have a reduced but functional digestive system, which may afford
them faster growth rates and, hence, a competitive advantage over the tubeworms.
The vent mussels, unlike the shore variety, also have the ability to climb,
which allows them to find the perfect spot along a vent, even if the water flow
or chemistry changes. Thus, mussels have a couple tools that let them dominate
the vent community.

The giant clams are another inhabitant of the later successional stage of a
vent community. Big as dinner plates, these clams lie in the cracks of rocks
from which vent water flows. Van Dover describes them as "white necklaces about
lumps of lava in the heart of the field." Apparently, these organisms also rely
on endosymbionts to obtain their nutrition, but not much else is known.

Where clams, mussels, and tubeworms dominate the vents of the Pacific,
another group of organisms, the "blind" shrimp, dominate the vents of the
mid-Atlantic Ridge. Discovered in 1985 crowding around an active black smoker,
these shrimp have no eyes, and cover the sulfide mounds like vast colonies of
ants. Whereas symbiosis is the norm for the Pacific tubeworms and bivalves, the
Atlantic vent shrimp appear to scrape bacteria from the debris surrounding a
vent. The way they appear to attack a vent is epic, and given that such a large
organism has to make it living scraping the rocks, it makes sense that they take
this duty so seriously. I envision great armies of blind shrimp roaming from
vent to vent, removing its matted colonies of bacteria to a mere smattering,
then moving on to another, unharvested vent. Thus they travel vent to vent in
search of a tiny morsel to live another day.

This curious behavior led Van Dover to study these organisms in greater
detail. While preserved specimens appeared to be completely devoid of eyes, she
noticed in photographs a pair of reflective spots on the back of the shrimp. She
speculated that they might be a type of "eyespot" and set out to determine
whether these spots contained pigments that might be light-sensitive. Indeed,
she found a visual pigment much like the rhodopsin that occurs in many
invertebrates and vertebrates. Yet, the big question was, what were they looking
at? Living in the pitch dark blackness of the sea, why did they need
eyespots?

Given the behavior of these shrimp, the idea began to emerge that vents emit
some kind of light radiation that the shrimp can see. Van Dover and her
colleagues rigged a camera to detect this "heat radiation" and found, much to
their delight, that vents glow! Your book illustrates this quite nicely, showing
how a vent emits a glow in a wavelength that could be detected by a shrimp. It's
quite likely that scientists would not have discovered this glow without being
curious about the shrimp's eyespots, and thus, another fascinating area of
research was born. What we thought were "blind" shrimp weren't so blind after
all, and, from the shrimp's point of view, it was the scientists who were blind
really! The important point is that these shrimp have evolved a very
sophisticated sensor for finding vents and this is what has allowed them to be
so successful in making a living off the vents.

As with all good things, life at the vent must come to an end. In the
ever-moving, ever-changing cycle of events on the sea floor, hydrothermal vents
reach their maturity and fade away. As the dikes and passageways through which
the seawater circulates become clogged or altered by the spreading of the sea
floor, some hydrothermal vents are turned off. Without their precious supply of
sulfides and warm water, bacteria and animals surrounding the vent must move or
die. One of the more somber scenes described by Van Dover concerns a site called
Clambake, a literal graveyard for giant clams. Empty and dissolving clam shells
litter the terrain of a dried up vent, left to "rust" in the cold, black waters
of the heartless abyss.

Ultimately, vents are either buried by fresh lava or by sediments, as a rain
of particles accumulates over time. From the Tubeworm Barbecue to Clambake, the
ghost towns of hydrothermal vents are created, moved aside, and eventually
buried. But with the slow "death march" of old vents comes the birth of new
ones, and the inexorable cycle of life begins again. Life springs eternal in the
hot mineral geysers of the deep dark sea.